Or on my time 🎧 listening to audiobooks and music. Both are very valuable to me: complete solitude and 🎧 time. I have a long list of titles I want to listen to and I have big projects that require solitude for contemplation.

Far from being an asocial person, I simply value time alone.

So there is this neighbor in our complex with whom I crossed paths during what used to be my morning walk routine two years ago. Later, she texted me to invite to a movie night out with her girlfriends and I declined. Then, last summer, she gave me a ride from the clinic after a medical procedure (the kind under sedation, so I was required to bring a responsible driver and disallowed shared rides).

I no longer go on morning walks..

Recently, my patio door was open and this neighbor walked in with her doggie. We had a pleasant conversation during which I mentioned starting to use the sauna in the conplex' clubhouse. I mentioned it because we talked about sleep apnea and other sleep difficulties.

I am always alone in the sauna and it is my audio time. I stay for 20 minutes. She expressed the intention to join me.

Again, I am not asocial and she is a perfectly pleasant neighbor, just not someone whom I would want to spend every evening with. So far, she has not texted and the few occasions I was at the sauna, I was still alone.

I would be perfectly happy to invite her to a long home cooked dinner or lunch as a one time thing or even once in a while. I can even see myself joining her for a movie, again one time or maybe two times separated by long stretches of not seeing her. What I do not see myself doing is swapping the audio time alone for small talk with her every single night. The sauna is a community amenity and of course I cannot restrict her access to it. I am thinking that if she starts going to the sauna at the same time with me, I will stop going and instead will go on evening walks outside of our complex. Luckily I do not have a set schedule with the sauna - sometimes I go earlier and other times, I go later. Without coordination, she cannot always be there together with me

I am not looking for new friendships of a deep kind. I prioritize keeping in touch with the many friends I already have (just a couple of them are local). In other words, I go for depth and tenure and not shallowness and newness.

I have been thinking about what to do if this neighbor texts me about the sauna. How to communicate what I have just written here without sounding impolite or unappreciative is what I have been contemplating. I realize that she may be at a different station in her life at which she is looking for new friends and doesn't have consuming personal projects that require solitude.

Ideas?